Jumping through concert's right hoops

Two months later than planned, the musicians in Braata will be able to physically "release" their first album - "K(no)w Gnomes" - Friday at Stockton's Waterloo Gun & Bocci Club.

That's because Joe Flores and Mike Tsarnas learned what they didn't know about the bedeviling process of getting permission to play live music in San Joaquin County.

"I've learned there's a right way and a wrong way to do something," said Tsarnas, 55, who manages the club.

"You can be doing it the wrong way and nobody notices it. There's a right way to do the wrong thing. That's why we're doing it right. They're satisfied with what we're doing. We're satisfied with what they're doing."

What Tsarnas and Flores did was obtain a permit that a county code-enforcement spokeswoman described as an "improvement plan for a special event."

Now, they can follow through on their concept of staging a series of four concerts at the 67-year-old club. They had to cancel a Nov. 16 Braata show when someone apparently alerted county officials to the missing permit.

Which was weird, because they've been holding events - from quinceañeras to day-long summer rock music shows - at the club for a long time.

Rumors - that the Stockton reggae-rock group's show was going to be a "rave" or some kind of five-band "battle" - apparently concerned law-enforcement folks.

It cost Tsarnas $500 for the permit. He'll also spend between $500 and $700 to hire five additional security guards.

Flores, 27, whose Tunelift.com is organizing the concert, had to negotiate the county bureaucracy. Eight department officials - from environmental health to community development, the Highway Patrol and Sheriff's Department - had to sign the live-music permission slip.

"We're not trying to stir anything up," said Flores, who did a lot of driving around, including two trips to the San Joaquin County Jail. "We'll do whatever needs to get done. We've got it (the permit) now and we're gearing up."

A Linden High School, San Joaquin Delta College and California State University, Chico, graduate, Flores even was asked, "Do I have another job?"

He had to find new bands to support Braata, which released its recording on the Internet in November.

"I really won't know until Friday," Flores said about the delayed Braata release's visibility. "I don't feel we necessarily have the momentum for this show that we did for that show."

Now, his plan - to make the Gun & Bocci Club at least a semi-regular venue for varieties of live pop-rock music - includes shows scheduled for March 15 (Braata and Chico's Brass Hysteria) April 26 and June 7.

Ben "Kaos" Lichter's last big video exposure on YouTube tried to capture a gritty glimpse of the "street-level" Stockton.

"In It 2 Win It," big on the Internet in 2011, used Nick Diaz, a friend and champion kick-boxer from Stockton, as a metaphoric focus.

Now, Lichter's turned the lens more directly on himself in "Closure," which begins its YouTubing ride today.

"It's about love, loss and that moment of loss," he said of a song he first released on CD in 2009.

"That kind of depressive moment I think is a basic thing. It's very introspective for the viewer and listener."

It was filmed by friend Phillip Affluence in a Stockton apartment.

"He really captured the emotion of the song," said Lichter, 32, a Lincoln High School graduate. "I was tentative about doing this song for a long time. I wanted to make sure the visuals lived up to the music. It did. He really captured the emotion of my life. I'm sure other people have been in that moment, too."

He's hoping "Closure" gets as much exposure as "In It 2 Win It," though he's not really sure exactly how wide that was.

"They say as many as 40,000," he said. "But you never really know because of embedding in things like Zamzar. A lot of people did see it. A bunch of haters, too. Some people hate on everyone."

Lichter said he avoids commercial video sites because of artistic integrity: "I deliberately haven't done that. I will not. If that happens, it won't be my decision."

He still sells his four CDs person-to-person (that's how he started) and "makes money doing shows" in Modesto and Stockton.

His self-made marketing plan is to "contact people (in the media) and make myself be known and get it seen right away. Otherwise, it goes on the back burner."

He also wants to advocate for other young people with artistic instincts to help heal some persistent community wounds.